Women's Tennis Headline

The No.
18 Florida State women’s tennis team cruised to the doubles point and captured
three hard-fought singles matches to defeat No. 33 Auburn, 4-0, on Saturday at
Linder Stadium at Ring Tennis Complex in the NCAA First Round.

The
Seminoles (17-7) advance to the NCAA Second Round to face the winner of the
Florida/College of Charleston
contest. Sunday’s championship game commences at 2 p.m. EST at Linder Stadium
at Ring Tennis Complex. Single-day tickets for Sunday’s session are $3 for
everyone and may be purchased at Linder Stadium. Auburn, making its third consecutive NCAA
Tournament appearance, ends its season at 11-13.

“Our
girls did a really good job of setting the tone today, starting with doubles,”
FSU head coach Jennifer Hyde said. “We did a good job of backing Auburn down on a lot of
the courts. Auburn’s
a heck of a team, and we knew it was going to be a gritty match today. I
thought we did a really good job against a really good Auburn
team.”

FloridaState’s
No. 3 doubles tandem of Lauren Macfarlane and NoemieScharle motored past Auburn’s
FaniChifchieva and Taylor Schreimann, 8-1, before the Seminoles’ Jessica Sucupira and Bonny Davidson clinched the doubles point for
their team with an 8-2 victory against the Tigers’ MyrtheMolenveld and Daniela Vukadinovic.

FloridaState, making its 16th NCAA
Tournament appearance in school history, will be looking to advance to the
round of 16 in the team championships for the first time in program history.

The
Seminoles now hold a 19-2 lead against the Tigers in series history.

“First of
all, I have to give kudos to FloridaState,” Auburn head
coach Tim Graysaid.
“They did a great job today. We felt like, coming in, the team that dealt with
adversity better during the match would be the one that would get the win. I
thought the match was pretty even. FloridaState did a great job of
putting pressure on us in the doubles and they did a better job handling the
difficult situations that came up during the match than we did.”

“Our
girls did a really good job of setting the tone today, starting with
doubles. We came out very aggressive. We did a good job of backing Auburn down on a lot of
the courts. Auburn’s
a heck of a team, and we knew it was going to be a gritty match today. I
thought we did a really good job against a really good Auburn
team.”

On how her team faired after having not competed in three
weeks …

“I’m
really happy for our girls, because we haven’t competed in three weeks.
We needed a tough match and Auburn
gave us that. We knew it was going to be tight in a lot of spots.
I’m really pleased how we set the tone early with doubles. I was really
happy, and our girls did a great job with that.”

On
potentially facing host Florida
in the NCAA Second Round …

“Any time
you play against a good team, it’s not hard to get up for it. The rivalry with Florida, in the event that we’re playing Florida, is always a
great rivalry. They’re a good, competitive, well-coached team. We expect
nothing but an absolute dogfight. We’re ready for it. We are excited about it,
and ready for the opportunity to get to a place we’ve never been before. We’re
going to put our heads down and enjoy this win for the day, and come out ready
to go tomorrow.”

FloridaState Sophomore Federica Suess

On
FSU’s first-round win against No. 33 Auburn
on Saturday …

“We
started off well playing doubles. We dominated pretty early and singles was
pretty much the same thing. We are having fun out there and it’s a great
tournament.”

On
facing the winner of the Florida-College of Charleston match on Sunday …

“We are
looking forward to the match tomorrow. The Sweet 16 is a big deal for us, as we
have never done that at FloridaState. It’s definitely a
big deal.”

Auburn
Head Coach Tim Gray

On his
team’s 4-0 loss to No. 18 FloridaState in the NCAA First Round …

“First of
all, I have to give kudos to FloridaState. They did a great
job today. We felt like, coming in, the team that dealt with adversity better
during the match would be the one that would get the win. I thought the match
was pretty even. FloridaState did a great job of
putting pressure on us in the doubles and they did a better job handling the
difficult situations that came up during the match than we did.”

On the
experience his team gained from advancing to its third consecutive NCAA
Tournament …

“We felt
like we were going to be in as either a two or three seed. We felt that our
schedule prepared us to be here. We beat two top-25 teams this year. We thought
our chances were good, but we came out slow in doubles and they were able to
capitalize on the momentum. I thought we were able to neutralize things a
little bit early on in singles, but FloridaState did a good job of
managing the momentum.”

On
what it says for the direction of his program advancing to three consecutive
NCAA Tournaments …

“We’ve
only been to the NCAA Tournament six times as a program, but three times since
I’ve been here. I definitely think we are headed in the right direction and I
am proud of the direction that our program is going in. We’ve got a good
recruiting class coming in next year. I really think our kids are starting to
turn the corner. We beat Georgia
two years ago when they were No. 1 in the country, and we’ve played Florida close, losing
4-3, the last couple of times. I think we’re to the point where we can play
with anyone, we just don’t have the depth right now to beat these teams day in
and day out.”